May 8, 2025 • 37 mins
Remember that cringeworthy moment when Michael Scott signed his diversity training completion form as "Daffy Duck"? Or when Kelly slapped him after his offensive impersonation? These unforgettable scenes from The Office's "Diversity Day" episode reveal something fascinating about workplace culture both then and now.
Twenty years after this controversial episode first aired, we're taking a deep dive into what made it simultaneously problematic yet ahead of its time. The episode brilliantly showcases what happens when an untrained manager attempts to handle sensitive topics without proper expertise – resulting in multiple terminable offenses that would likely get someone fired on the spot today.
What's particularly striking about watching "Diversity Day" in 2024 is noticing how Mr. Brown's professional approach to diversity training was surprisingly progressive for 2005. When he corrects Michael's "I don't see color" statement by explaining that's "fighting ignorance with ignorance" and instead emphasizes celebrating diversity, he articulates principles that have become fundamental to modern DEI work.
The episode serves as both a time capsule and a cautionary tale, highlighting an essential lesson for organizations: some training topics require specialized expertise. As HR professionals, we see this episode as a perfect example of why sensitive issues like diversity and inclusion often benefit from bringing in qualified external trainers rather than handling them in-house without proper training.
Whether you're an Office superfan or an HR professional looking for entertaining examples of workplace don'ts, join us as we analyze all the cringe, examine what's changed in twenty years, and extract valuable lessons that remain relevant today. And stick around for our next episode where we'll tackle "Healthcare" – another HR nightmare courtesy of Dunder Mifflin's most problematic manager.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Had you actually read the email, you would know that
the podcast you are about tolisten to could contain explicit
language and offensive content.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard mymanager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HRportal password, or Can I write
(00:24):
up my employee for crying toomuch?
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two HR
professionals who want to helpyou get through the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking, but say it out loud.
I'm Warren.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm Cece.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Okay, at long last, here comes your Diversity Day
episode.
In the last episode we saidit's been about two months that
we've been saying this one'scoming, and I just got to the
point where I can't edit it.
I don't have the time.
It'll be quicker and easierjust to rerecord.
So that's what we're doing andyou will have this You're
listening to this hopefullytowards the end of April.
So yay, us, yay Showing how thesausage is made.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think that going forward, though, we'll have
these much more regularly.
The third episode of everymonth, like we said, we're going
to as well.
So, yeah, so Diversity Day,it's season one, episode two.
It really sets the tone onceagain for how far the office can
(01:48):
go and how far they can't go.
They couldn't go today as well,so do you want to set the
episode up a little further orjust go whatever comes up to our
mind?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, so I'll set it up.
Comes up to our mind yeah, soI'll set it up.
So Michael, the fearless leaderof Dunder Mifflin, has made
some inappropriate jokes in theoffice and we find out later
that it's a rendition of a ChrisRock joke and apparently this
has made people feeluncomfortable.
So they have hired an externaltrainer to come in and do and
(02:23):
talk about diversity.
So two things off the top of mymind.
I am a huge fan of the Office.
I have seen this episode athousand times, yet I have never
actually done the digging tosee the Chris Rock skit that
he's talking about.
So I did, okay, and I'm like oh, you cannot do this in an
(02:45):
office, michael.
No, no, no, so, yeah.
So it's a very inappropriatething to try to reenact in an
office.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Especially as maybe a middle-aged white guy.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Especially, yeah, middle-aged white guy.
No, it's just in bad taste.
Don't do it, mainly because, Idon't know.
I think they kind of get to itbecause they bleep him.
But he does drop the n-word inthe joke and it seems like
michael was doing it verbatim.
Yeah, so, and it's a lot.
So, please, that is incrediblyinappropriate, michael.
(03:18):
So, yeah, so then they bring inthis expert in diversity His
name is Mr Brown to come in anddo this diversity training.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And I will say I love the casting of Mr Brown,
whoever he is.
I've seen him in something elsebefore.
I keep meaning to go to IMDBand search what I've seen him in
, but I swear I've seen him insomething, but he's perfect for
the role.
He.
He sells me on the fact thathe's a diversity consultant and
(03:53):
he handles Michael beautifullyso good.
And this is thing Michael isn'tused to being handled at all,
but much less like this.
I love when he says well,actually, would you give me
permission to take lead on this?
So Michael still has control,but he really can't say no in
front of everybody with that.
(04:14):
I love that.
And then he said oh, this wouldwork better too if you would
sit down as well.
I just the way he handled.
Michael was just, you know,perfect and he sold me on that
he's a diversity consultant thetone and the way he was talking
and things like that.
But I keep going back to A.
(04:39):
You couldn't do this episodetoday and you know you're
watching Peacock and since wetwo months ago, when we did our
last rewatch episode, it says20th anniversary all over the
office on Peacock.
Now I'm like- that's incredible20 years ago.
Yeah, it is incredible and it'sstill relevant for the most part
.
I can't see a major studio likeNBC doing some of the stuff
(05:00):
that they're.
It would be something thatwould be straight to Peacock or,
you know, back in the day itwould be straight to DVD.
But now it'd be something thatgoes straight to the streaming.
Versus what they put on theactual shows, it's a little.
It's a little racy and theyplay it so safe nowadays.
So it's, it's really.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I will say cause this it's a good point you brought
up.
This was brought up in 2000 andor this was released in 2005 and
one of the main things that hehad said, mr Brown had said and
and yes, you're right, I, thatis an actor who I completely
believe is a training belongs inthe training industry.
He does the job so well, butthere was, you know, at the at
(05:43):
the beginning of the training,when he's kind of handling
michael, michael's kind ofdefensive, but not really, and
he's just like this is acolor-free zone, we don't see
color, and he stops him and hegoes no, no, saying that is
fighting ignorance withignorance and we want to
celebrate diversity and for methat was 2005.
And that was kind of ahead ofits time because that's how we
(06:06):
understand diversity, equity andinclusion now.
So like, and that's not how Idon't think that's how that was
handled back then.
I want to be really transparent.
I was in my, a college student,but I'm going to assume it was
(06:33):
not dealt in the same way.
So I think that this was alittle ahead of its time.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It really was because I was working in 2005.
I was working in HR in 2005when this came out and, yeah,
diversity, I don't think we haddone, I'd ever done, an actual
diversity training.
By that point, yeah, I don'tthink it was a thing back then.
(06:59):
So, who knows, who knows withit?
So, oh man, I'm actually tryingto pull up the actor's name.
I'm on the imdb right nowtrying to see, but it I don't
think he's listed.
Anyways, I'll keep on going,I'll edit this stuff out, but
anyways I I think it is ahead ofhis time.
The training they did, but thewhole we okay, you've already
(07:22):
said the reason why they'retrained.
So he passes out these cards toeverybody in the group there
and says there was an incident.
Why don't you tell me about anincident that made you
uncomfortable recently?
And just as predicted, becausea good consultant who does
something like that, just likean attorney, you don't ask a
question you don't know theanswer to.
This guy knew the answer he wasgoing to get.
(07:43):
It looks like.
Oh, a question you don't knowthe answer to.
This guy knew the answer he wasgoing to get.
It looks like we all gave thesame answer on a recent, which
is exactly why I'm here, michaeland things like that.
So it was perfect.
It really was well done acrossthe board.
Okay, his name is Larry Wilmore.
Mr Brown is Larry Wilmore.
Let me see what else.
(08:03):
He was in the Facts of Life in1979.
I love that show.
Lisa Welch was one of my veryfirst crushes as a little kid on
the Facts of Life.
He was on Sledgehammer.
I loved that show as well.
I'm trying to see what else.
Grown-ish, black-ish yeah, he'sbeen around.
He was on the Fresh Prince ofBella Also.
(08:23):
Oh, no, that was 1995, not 2005.
He was on Living Color, so 62episodes.
Oh, he was a major character inLiving Color.
So anyways, I knew I recognizedhim, I just couldn't put it
together or where.
From Bernie Mac Show 104episodes.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So yeah, oh, he had his own show on Comedy Central,
the Nightly Show with LarryWilmore.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yep, I see there too.
Yeah, okay, but he killed thatrole.
He did he did so good.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
He also did so good handling Dwight oh Dwight.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
When Dwight would say what was it?
When?
He was like okay, can we talkabout races, talk about gays,
homosexuality or yeah, or thegays.
Whatever he said, yeah, I don'tknow what he says.
That's not a race that's not arace.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
He turns around and mr brown is just like well, we
only have an hour yeah, I'm surehe's like.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I can make billable hours forever in this office,
the cash coming in and and mikemichael, you know, when he's
trying to take over and lead thething, he goes.
Why don't we start by everybodygoing around the room and
saying the the races weresexually attracted to?
Oh my god and of course they gostraight to dwight, who's
(09:45):
sitting right beside mindy kelly.
What's her?
Name kelly kelly sitting rightbeside kelly.
It says I'm attracted to whitesand indians, and she like side
eyes.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Him like this is uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It's creepy on so many different levels.
It's creepy and it's a and it'sa Dwight, it's a complete
Dwight Schrute type of thing tosay, and oh.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
But the funny thing is I've been in situations where
I'm doing a training andsomeone says something so off
the wall, and you're like inyour mind that made sense, but
you didn't really consider theaudience you're sitting in front
of, and then you have to kindof pivot.
And he did such a good jobpivoting so I was like, oh, like
again, great, great trainer.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
But yeah, the training and it comes out.
You know, everybody has to signa form.
They participated in thetraining.
And Michael says, oh, I'm notgoing to sign this.
This says I actually learnedsomething.
I didn't learn anything.
You can put that taughtsomething.
Michael's trying to wrangleattention and make this about
him as per usual.
The kids would say and onceagain, mr Brown, michael, can we
(10:58):
talk about this?
And he'd go into Michael'soffice behind closed doors and
the whole reason I'm here isjust for you.
Yeah, and I didn't want tosingle you out or anything, I
tried to do this, but I needyour signature.
And of course, what?
After reading it, michael signsit as Daffy duck, so many
terminal offenses.
I mean, do your investigationand say, okay, michael, you, you
(11:21):
did this Chris Rock routine.
Okay, yeah, it's time for youto oh, oh, even going back even
further, when it first started,the episode started yeah, I've
been wanting to have a diversitytraining in our office.
For some I've been leading incharge.
Well, I haven't actually spokento anybody.
And yeah, he's trying to takecredit for something he
(11:42):
absolutely had nothing to dowith, so you know, it's trying
to take credit for something heabsolutely had nothing to do
with.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So you know his ego won't let him learn anything.
His ego won't let him listen,and that's the that's the issue
with Michael Scott.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, so now I can say that the first round of
diversity training is over andnow we go into.
Michael isn't satisfied,satisfied, so he's got to create
his own diversity day part two,and he created a little video
which I think.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
there's a couple other episodes where michael
scott creates some videos andit's like 30 seconds long and I
will say there was a point wherehe, after the after mr brown
leaves, then he signed the paper, daffy Duck, he walks out of
his office and he's being verycheeky about I vow to be honest
and empathetic and then he ripsit up, yeah, and he's like, oh
(12:36):
wait, no, I actually do want tobe those things, but.
But I have been in situations,especially in training
situations, where the leaderdoes not believe in what we're
doing, believes what we're doingis a waste of time and then
will undermine everything youjust did.
When you leave the room andthat was the one thing when
Michael was doing that it gotunder my skin so bad.
(12:59):
I was like just move on, man,let people work.
Just move on, man, let peoplework.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Just move on.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh, if you haven't watched the episode, that's the
whole gist of the show.
Michael, doesn't let anybodywork.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
He doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
How the heck.
And they're apparently one ofthe best offices in all.
Dunder Mifflin througheverything.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
So anyways, but Michael does his own and you
covered the video last time youI'll let you take the video what
michael says oh yeah, he saiddiversity today or no, we are
diversity tomorrow because todayis almost over, which I love,
(13:43):
like actually that's pretty goodmarketing he quotes abraham
that's right.
I forget what he said.
Oh my gosh, Like if you're aracist.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I'll send the army, the Northern Army, to attack and
kill you, or something likethat.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
That's right.
Yes, according to AbrahamLincoln, if you're a racist.
And okay, going back to thelast episode and the the
conferences and things.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I I hate interactivity in conference
things because in my opinion, itmeans you didn't have enough
content to fill, so you weretrying to waste time and have
people do the stupid littlethings together and waste time,
etc.
So, anyways, oh, lauren, you'retrying to waste time and have
people do stupid little thingstogether and waste time, etc.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So, anyways, oh Warren, you're so jaded.
That's what experientiallearning is.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
There's a difference between experiential learning
and doing teamwork and groupexercise.
I don't think I've ever doneone that I thought, oh, this was
useful for something.
No, it wasn't, but anywaysthought, oh, this was useful for
something.
Now, it wasn't, but it was Iwill.
I'll go back to the episode andtalk about.
So michael is talking about hisheritage and the first thing he
goes to is straight to oscarand asks you know, he wants him
(15:08):
to tell us about your, you know,michael's, I'm.
I'm english, scottish, german,whatever he is, and all.
And so he goes straight toOscar and says tell us about
yourself.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And Oscar clocks it.
He's like, okay, like he's sosmart, he knows what Michael's
doing.
He's like okay, well, myparents are from Mexico and they
moved here before I was born,so I was raised here.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And I loved it because, well, what do you want
to?
To be called, or I forget howhe gets on the topic what do you
want mexican?
And he goes.
Well, isn't that an offensiveterm?
Speaker 3 (15:46):
no, yes, doesn't it?
Doesn't that have connotations?
And he's like what connotationsare you talking?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
and yeah, so I think the going around the room sort
of stopped abruptly there.
So good job, and then and thenreally quick.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Kelly had to leave because she had a client meeting
and then as she was leaving andkelly's indian.
And as she was leaving, michaelwas like oh, and he goes, but
if you leave, they'll only betwo left, and he's obviously
referring to Oscar, who'sMexican, and Stanley, who's
black.
So that was a really funnymoment and she was like what?
And he's like nevermind.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah and yeah, but those are the things I don't
think you could say and do onnetwork TV today.
I think that they would havesome sort of conniption on
redoing the office like that andhaving those today.
With all the crap going on inoffices today and romances and
(16:53):
all this other stuff, you know,wow, Not that romances didn't
happen before, but with thedigital world of everything, I
think an HR office would be anexcellent TV show idea where you
get the HR team and their talk.
You don't even have to see theperpetrators of all these
offenses that we have to, youjust have to.
Oh my God, I got to deal withTommy again.
(17:13):
You know what is he.
You know it was another.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I would love a workplace comedy that was just
the HR team and the differentfunctions of HR and outside of
that little ecosystem of all thestuff they have to deal with
regularly and all of theirregular offenders and all that
kind of stuff.
I think there's something there.
I don't have time to write it,but if someone wants to write it
, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Give us credit and some money, yeah just give me my
royalty.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
We'll timestamp this.
This is how it went out, so youknow it's fine, Sign contracts
later.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I started going down this part of the episode earlier
, but we do finally getintroduced to Toby, the office
HR person, and you know you talkabout your ratios, depending on
your industry.
I think they say it's supposedto be between one and 100, one
hr person every 100 to 200people, depending on the
industry and what they got yeahinclude, you add the warehouse
(18:12):
people, you've got 20 peoplethere, dunder, miffin and he's
got.
hopefully he handles more thanthat, but he's walking in for
Michael's diversity day and getout.
Well, first Toby tries to makea snide comment Are you going to
have a sit Indian style on thefloor, michael?
And you know trying to try to.
Michael just says get out, getout.
(18:33):
And you instantly get therelationship between Michael and
Toby, who represents HR in theshow.
So that was really telling.
So you only see Toby for what?
30 seconds or so before he justturns on 30 seconds.
I'm out.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And, by the way, surprise that Toby, the HR
person, is the one that used theterm Indian style, isn't it
crisscross applesauce yeah,isn't that what we're doing now?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
that's what it is now , and I tell you what I did.
My daughter comes home fromkindergarten or something like
that, and talking aboutcrisscross applesauce, I'm like
what?
And I was like, oh, okay, I getit.
We can't say it's Indian styleany longer, or what have you.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Crisscross applesauce which to me sounds cuter.
For kids it is cuter.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, it's a cuter thing.
It's marketed better.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, it is marketed better.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So the exercise the group exercise Michael comes up
with is he has all these cardson a tray and he probably played
a party game or something wherethere's something on it.
You put something in your headand you're trying to get someone
to say whatever word is on yourhead, or something like that.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
I've done a couple of things like that yeah, you got
to get the person with the cardon their head to guess what's on
their card?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, michael has all these quote unquote races of
people, oh my gosh.
And so everybody's walkingaround with these things on
their head and most of themaren't races.
There's one of them, jewish,one is Italian.
Michael's wearing Martin LutherKing.
That's not a race.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I know, because he's my hero.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
He's my hero and anyway.
So that's the thing.
And, of course, stanley.
What did Stanley get?
Stanley got black and hisexercise is go, just walk around
the room and talk to peoplelike you would, according to
whatever race is on theirforehead, and Stanley and pam
are saying hi, how are you doing?
(20:39):
Oh, I'm doing good, how are you?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
they're having a typical conversation and michael
hates that and yeah, he wantspeople to dig into the horrible
stereotypes.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, he's come on, we have the holocaust here
versus slavery here and he'sgetting all into it.
And that's when mike or, excuseme, staley discovers that he's
got black boys and he's not toohappy about it.
And then pam and dwight gettalking and I dwight is wearing,
I think it says, chinese on hishead asian, asian, it just says
(21:14):
asian, okay, which is probablypretty advanced for that time 20
years ago.
But and Pam starts off like Ireally like your food and things
like that and Michael's onceagain prompted no, you've really
got to.
And she's like okay if I haveto give a completely untrue
stereotypical because you can'tdrive and he goes, I'm a woman.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
I'm a woman, 'm a woman, and it was just.
I do love, though, in the sameinteraction he walks up to pam
and he's just like shalom.
I would like to apply for aloan and I was like, oh my gosh,
like dwight, it's such a badexercise on so many levels, but
dwight is in it to win it whenyou have a dwight you.
You have to know your audience,like whoa he got frustrated
because someone, I guess, hintedabout rice and he's like a lot
(22:05):
of cultures eat rice and he leftthat conversation and he just
like wants to win.
So bad, and it's just so funnyoh.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
And then eric baumgartner's, kevin.
Then you have Kevin talking toAngela Kinsley I can't remember
her name.
Angela, oh, angela, yeah.
So Kevin is talking to Angelaand he goes.
You want to go to the beach,and she's like no.
You want to get high man, andshe's like no.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I think you do man, I think you do Mon, I think you
do man, it was just, it was theyou know.
Just watching it made meviscerally uncomfortable.
I'm like there's so much inthis room that's happening that
is so wrong, and why is Michaelstill employed?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So many terminable offenses.
And then you mentioned Kellyhad to leave for an important
call.
She comes back in the room andthis is probably coming very
close to equaling the Chris Rockincident.
Yes, maybe she comes back tothe room and he does if you
watch Old Simpsons, as they tookhim off Abu character.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Oh, Abu yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It does like the Abu character.
You want some cookie and ahorrible Indian accent like
welcome to my convenience store.
Whatever he's saying, and itwas so bad.
And Kelly's just like what,what?
And she ends up hauling off andslapping him and she gets it
Kelly Well them.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
and she gets it kelly well, kelly doesn't know what's
going on.
She just walks into the roomshe's not there, privy to the
cards, she's not privy toanything and he just starts
being insulting andstereotypical at her and she
just slaps him across the face,which?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
rightfully so.
Oh, absolutely.
And like I said then he, yougot to give credit to Michael.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
He thought quickly she gets it and he's she gets it
, and then he says you now knowwhat it is to feel racism or
something.
And it's, it was just.
Oh, it was so cringy.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It was like I said, it's a really good episode.
I really enjoyed watching thatone again.
What a you know other sidestories that aren't directly as
HR cringeworthy that we see.
Well, ryan the Temp.
He was apparently sitting onthe couch the whole episode.
He wasn't invited to eithermeeting, so you just see him
(24:37):
chilling on the couch back thereand I like to think that ryan
was invited to both meetings,but he just declined slacked out
of it, doing the bare minimum,which is brian ryan's key.
You know he's ahead of his time.
Doing the the bare minimum,bare sort of like jim, I guess
you could say.
But you know, dwight stealsjim's biggest commission of the
(24:59):
year and just kills him.
And then we see the buddingromance, office romance between
pam and jim.
We see that.
So yeah, it's, like I said,good episode.
If you haven't watched it, goback and watch it.
And you we've talked aboutbefore some of these episodes
you can't even find onlineanymore or they're edited, like
(25:21):
when you watch it on ComedyCentral or what have you.
They've edited entire lines andscenes out.
Which sort of leaves when youknow it's supposed to be there.
It sort of leaves the.
You know it's one of those.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Han shot first things If you're a certain age, you
know who shot first.
Han shot first.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Han shot first.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I will say I was watching Comedy Central and they
were doing a replay of theOffice and they went.
They jumped from the pilotstraight to episode three.
They didn't even do DiversityDay when they were broadcasting
the marathon.
I was like that was aninteresting move.
So, yeah, because I mean Iwatch it and I watch it from and
they were broadcasting themarathon.
I was like that was aninteresting move.
So, yeah, because I mean Iwatch it and I watch it from the
perspective of like Michael isacting inappropriately.
(26:05):
Everything he is doing isinappropriate and that is the
joke.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Like.
The joke is that he is beinginappropriate.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
But he doesn't get that.
He is, by any stretch of theimagination, he's oblivious.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Correct, and that's why I'm always like huh, like I
always just kind of cock my heada little and be like, well,
that's weird that they like justskipped that episode completely
.
But I also, I get it, I guess.
Well, it's also.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Comedy Central who puts out South Park and some
other.
A lot more challenging things,I guess I don't know what the
right word would be.
A lot more racy things thaneven this.
But yeah, to see this episodenot in that list.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I did want to say really quick.
All the points in this episodewere Michael, I love Michael, I
do.
I think we always talk aboutMichael being the epitome of a
really great individualcontributor who just is promoted
into a management positionbecause of their performance and
not because of their leadershipabilities.
And there are so many points inthis episode where he should
(27:11):
have been termed at the firstiteration of his rendition of
the Chris Rock joke.
He should have been then termedwhen he signed the form.
He didn't take it seriously andhe signed the form Daffy Duck.
He should have been termed whenhe threw this atrociously
abhorrent training that hedecided to do on his own.
(27:34):
There are so many steps in thisepisode where I was like what
are you doing, toby?
Like what are you doing backthere?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
He's thinking about Kelly and Pam a little too much
back there.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Oh, that's right, he does have the hots for Pam.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah.
So yeah, I don't think we findthat out for like years to come,
though yeah, he's kind of acreeper about it for like years
to come, though.
Yeah, he's kind of a creeperabout it.
Yeah, those will be some goodepisodes too that we do to cover
some of those things.
Yeah, so what's on the agendanext for?
Do you have any episodes online?
(28:11):
Oh, really quick.
One more thing.
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
One more thing I wanted to add before we moved on
.
One of the things I wanted tosay was, when we're talking
about training and development,when you're talking about these
kinds of situations like race,like diversity and inclusion,
and there are certain thingsthat, unless you have a
dedicated learning professionalin-house, there are certain
things that you should not touchwith a 10-foot pole and you
(28:36):
should probably outsource to anexpert and I think about that
when I watch this episode thatthe company did the right thing
by outsourcing this to diversitytoday.
But again, michael, thinking heknows better, just railroads
the situation and makes itreally inappropriate and, in my
(28:58):
opinion, kind of fireable.
So, oh yeah, lesson to belearned.
There are certain things thatyou probably should get an
external person involved if yourcompany is not equipped with an
lnd team and I don't thinkdunder mifflin is.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I really don't think they are either.
And another thing thing whereyou can take managers they're
doing their own wild wild westof training and development that
you don't.
You know, maybe they're doingsomething very functional for
their team.
Bring HR in the loop.
Just, you know, I wasexplaining to somebody the other
(29:34):
day.
My job is not to get in the way.
I want to support what you'redoing, but give me all the info
I need so I can support it.
If you want to make a personnelmove, you want to let someone
go my goal, I want to supportyou, but you have to give me
what I need to support you,because this person thought that
(29:55):
I was going to be a roadblockfor them removing somebody who
needed to be removed, and I'mlike no, no, just I want to
support you, I want to supportthe company, but you have to
give me what I want first.
And it scares me to death tothink that there are line
managers out there doing theirown training, even if it's
(30:16):
functional training, linemanagers out there doing their
own training, even if it'sfunctional training.
Hey, you're a machine operator,you do?
You know to do this?
A, b, c, d, e, f, g.
Let us know, give us a heads up, you know, just so we know.
And if we have more questions,or maybe there's something they
didn't think about, maybe, hey,osha, let's talk a little bit
about OSHA.
This might be a good time tobring something up along those
lines Get HR involved.
(30:37):
We're not the bad guy.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
It's funny that you mentioned that, because a friend
of mine who is a she's a DE&Iprofessional with a company.
I guess her company's benefitdepartment sent out this thing
for autism awareness.
Because we're in autismawareness and I guess they do a
(31:01):
monthly newsletter in thebenefits department and whoever
the benefits person was justearnestly copy and pasted
something that a benefitsprovider sent to them and one of
their vendors sent and it wentout and apparently it had a lot
of things in there that was well, people with autism they don't
(31:23):
deal well in public situationsand they don't do well counting
money and they don't like all ofthese really archaic things
that she just pulled fromanywhere without thinking about
it.
And luckily it was a livedocument, because as soon as my
friend got wind of it she calledup and she's like no, no, no,
(31:44):
no, no, no, we need to change it.
And basically had her own copyin place because like way better
, and it was all aboutneurodivergency and stuff like
that, and yeah, it was like itcould have been a really bad
situation, but they caught it.
So not a lot of people saw it,but yeah, it was like it could
have been a really bad situation, but they caught it.
So not a lot of people saw it.
But again, people in theorganization do things that are
very well intended and includingthe DEI person is not a
(32:11):
roadblock, but it's like apartnership so that you can say
things that aren't eitheroutdated or insulting or
whatever, like all this stuff.
So that's, yeah, that couldhave been a really bad situation
.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And you know neurodiversity and autism are
some of my hot button topics.
Hot button topics and I'mparticularly because when
someone goes down that road Ihave knowledge and experience
(32:50):
with dealing with it.
And I will say originally I wasfinding so much stuff about
just autism and about it wasjust blatantly false or it was
stereotypical type stuff andit's not true.
And now I think over the yearspeople have sort of gotten in
line with it a little bit better.
But yeah, that's a hot buttontopic we can definitely cross in
(33:12):
a regular episode.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Hey, I'm on, I'm on that neurodiversity train,
choo-choo.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
So I think we should just go straight into episode
three, the healthcare episode.
Oh, the healthcare episode yeah,it's straight up HR alley.
I think there's some that won'tbe quite as HR-ish, but you can
take any episode at all andturn it into HR with this.
(33:42):
I'm looking at episode six.
Hot Girl oh, you can definitelyHot Girl, that's right.
I mean, I'm just looking Downthe list here.
There's nothing I could say, oh, we could skip this one.
The Dundee Awards oh, thatmight have to be a two-episode
special for us.
And then oh, then the dundies.
Yeah, oh, that's season two,episode one.
And then sexual harassment andI'm looking at the list, if I,
(34:07):
if I can find it, I swear,somewhere online.
Conan o'brien, in one of hispodcasts or conan o'brien needs
a friend says that they actuallyplay excerpts from the sexual
harassment all of his sexualharassment at NBC for preventing
sexual harassment.
I was like that is so, so good,whatever.
So anyways, yeah, we'lldefinitely.
(34:29):
I don't see it episode to skipin season one though, as we're
looking down at.
But healthcare shoulddefinitely be the.
We'll be doing that one in May,so stay tuned for that.
Y'all Awesome.
Well, I think these are a lot offun.
I hope we can get back to doingthem regularly, once a month,
(34:50):
and if you have any ideas forshows, and this isn't just going
to be limited to the Office.
I think Office Space has some.
We ought to do a rewatch onOffice Space.
There's so many shows that wecould bring in.
I mentioned Big Bang Theory.
They have their.
Wolowitz always seems to be inHR's office.
Regina King, who is?
(35:12):
You know, she's a great personfor the.
I don't know her name in theshow, I just know she's the HR
person.
And yeah, there's some othergreat shows that have some HR
implications with that.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
So, yeah, yeah, I'm a big fan.
I don't know if any of thelisteners heard of the show
Superstore.
I think Superstore is great,especially if you work, either
if your industry is the retailindustry, and especially if you
work on the corporate end ofretail.
That is a fantastic show towatch Because there's a lot of
them versus us as far ascorporate versus floor workers,
(35:48):
and I think there's a lot ofreally funny but good takeaways
from that.
And it's the same thing If youlike the Office and you like
Parks and Recreation, it's thesame creators.
I also think parks andrecreation like that whole
government piece of, like thegovernment working for local
government or something likethat.
They have a lot of greatepisodes too.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So I, I love me some, ron Swanson.
I feel like I'm Ron Swansonhalf the time.
Put those tears back in youreyes where they belong, and
things like that.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Put those tears back in your eyes where they belong.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
I can quote Ron Swanson as much as I can pretty
much any other shows.
But anyways, listeners, if youhave any ideas, let us know.
We want to definitely make this, you know, expand this a little
bit.
Maybe it'll be more than once amonth we do an office rewatch
or a TV show.
If it's not the office, arewatch of some sort.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
So anyways, thanks for it's pop culture through the
lens of HR.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Absolutely yeah, so thank you for listening y'all.
We'll be back in another month,with the end of May, with a
healthcare episode.
So, as always, I'm Warren.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
I'm Cece.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
And we're here helping you survive HR one.
What the fuck moment at a time.
Had you actually read the email, you would know that
the podcast you are about tolisten to could contain explicit
language and offensive content.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard mymanager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HRportal password, or Can I write
(00:24):
up my employee for crying toomuch?
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two HR
professionals who want to helpyou get through the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking, but say it out loud.
I'm Warren.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I'm Cece.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Okay, at long last, here comes your Diversity Day
episode.
In the last episode we saidit's been about two months that
we've been saying this one'scoming, and I just got to the
point where I can't edit it.
I don't have the time.
It'll be quicker and easierjust to rerecord.
So that's what we're doing andyou will have this You're
listening to this hopefullytowards the end of April.
So yay, us, yay Showing how thesausage is made.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think that going forward, though, we'll have
these much more regularly.
The third episode of everymonth, like we said, we're going
to as well.
So, yeah, so Diversity Day,it's season one, episode two.
It really sets the tone onceagain for how far the office can
(01:48):
go and how far they can't go.
They couldn't go today as well,so do you want to set the
episode up a little further orjust go whatever comes up to our
mind?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, so I'll set it up.
Comes up to our mind yeah, soI'll set it up.
So Michael, the fearless leaderof Dunder Mifflin, has made
some inappropriate jokes in theoffice and we find out later
that it's a rendition of a ChrisRock joke and apparently this
has made people feeluncomfortable.
So they have hired an externaltrainer to come in and do and
(02:23):
talk about diversity.
So two things off the top of mymind.
I am a huge fan of the Office.
I have seen this episode athousand times, yet I have never
actually done the digging tosee the Chris Rock skit that
he's talking about.
So I did, okay, and I'm like oh, you cannot do this in an
(02:45):
office, michael.
No, no, no, so, yeah.
So it's a very inappropriatething to try to reenact in an
office.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Especially as maybe a middle-aged white guy.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Especially, yeah, middle-aged white guy.
No, it's just in bad taste.
Don't do it, mainly because, Idon't know.
I think they kind of get to itbecause they bleep him.
But he does drop the n-word inthe joke and it seems like
michael was doing it verbatim.
Yeah, so, and it's a lot.
So, please, that is incrediblyinappropriate, michael.
(03:18):
So, yeah, so then they bring inthis expert in diversity His
name is Mr Brown to come in anddo this diversity training.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And I will say I love the casting of Mr Brown,
whoever he is.
I've seen him in something elsebefore.
I keep meaning to go to IMDBand search what I've seen him in
, but I swear I've seen him insomething, but he's perfect for
the role.
He.
He sells me on the fact thathe's a diversity consultant and
(03:53):
he handles Michael beautifullyso good.
And this is thing Michael isn'tused to being handled at all,
but much less like this.
I love when he says well,actually, would you give me
permission to take lead on this?
So Michael still has control,but he really can't say no in
front of everybody with that.
(04:14):
I love that.
And then he said oh, this wouldwork better too if you would
sit down as well.
I just the way he handled.
Michael was just, you know,perfect and he sold me on that
he's a diversity consultant thetone and the way he was talking
and things like that.
But I keep going back to A.
(04:39):
You couldn't do this episodetoday and you know you're
watching Peacock and since wetwo months ago, when we did our
last rewatch episode, it says20th anniversary all over the
office on Peacock.
Now I'm like- that's incredible20 years ago.
Yeah, it is incredible and it'sstill relevant for the most part
.
I can't see a major studio likeNBC doing some of the stuff
(05:00):
that they're.
It would be something thatwould be straight to Peacock or,
you know, back in the day itwould be straight to DVD.
But now it'd be something thatgoes straight to the streaming.
Versus what they put on theactual shows, it's a little.
It's a little racy and theyplay it so safe nowadays.
So it's, it's really.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
I will say cause this it's a good point you brought
up.
This was brought up in 2000 andor this was released in 2005 and
one of the main things that hehad said, mr Brown had said and
and yes, you're right, I, thatis an actor who I completely
believe is a training belongs inthe training industry.
He does the job so well, butthere was, you know, at the at
(05:43):
the beginning of the training,when he's kind of handling
michael, michael's kind ofdefensive, but not really, and
he's just like this is acolor-free zone, we don't see
color, and he stops him and hegoes no, no, saying that is
fighting ignorance withignorance and we want to
celebrate diversity and for methat was 2005.
And that was kind of ahead ofits time because that's how we
(06:06):
understand diversity, equity andinclusion now.
So like, and that's not how Idon't think that's how that was
handled back then.
I want to be really transparent.
I was in my, a college student,but I'm going to assume it was
(06:33):
not dealt in the same way.
So I think that this was alittle ahead of its time.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It really was because I was working in 2005.
I was working in HR in 2005when this came out and, yeah,
diversity, I don't think we haddone, I'd ever done, an actual
diversity training.
By that point, yeah, I don'tthink it was a thing back then.
(06:59):
So, who knows, who knows withit?
So, oh man, I'm actually tryingto pull up the actor's name.
I'm on the imdb right nowtrying to see, but it I don't
think he's listed.
Anyways, I'll keep on going,I'll edit this stuff out, but
anyways I I think it is ahead ofhis time.
The training they did, but thewhole we okay, you've already
(07:22):
said the reason why they'retrained.
So he passes out these cards toeverybody in the group there
and says there was an incident.
Why don't you tell me about anincident that made you
uncomfortable recently?
And just as predicted, becausea good consultant who does
something like that, just likean attorney, you don't ask a
question you don't know theanswer to.
This guy knew the answer he wasgoing to get.
(07:43):
It looks like.
Oh, a question you don't knowthe answer to.
This guy knew the answer he wasgoing to get.
It looks like we all gave thesame answer on a recent, which
is exactly why I'm here, michaeland things like that.
So it was perfect.
It really was well done acrossthe board.
Okay, his name is Larry Wilmore.
Mr Brown is Larry Wilmore.
Let me see what else.
(08:03):
He was in the Facts of Life in1979.
I love that show.
Lisa Welch was one of my veryfirst crushes as a little kid on
the Facts of Life.
He was on Sledgehammer.
I loved that show as well.
I'm trying to see what else.
Grown-ish, black-ish yeah, he'sbeen around.
He was on the Fresh Prince ofBella Also.
(08:23):
Oh, no, that was 1995, not 2005.
He was on Living Color, so 62episodes.
Oh, he was a major character inLiving Color.
So anyways, I knew I recognizedhim, I just couldn't put it
together or where.
From Bernie Mac Show 104episodes.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So yeah, oh, he had his own show on Comedy Central,
the Nightly Show with LarryWilmore.
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yep, I see there too.
Yeah, okay, but he killed thatrole.
He did he did so good.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
He also did so good handling Dwight oh Dwight.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
When Dwight would say what was it?
When?
He was like okay, can we talkabout races, talk about gays,
homosexuality or yeah, or thegays.
Whatever he said, yeah, I don'tknow what he says.
That's not a race that's not arace.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
He turns around and mr brown is just like well, we
only have an hour yeah, I'm surehe's like.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
I can make billable hours forever in this office,
the cash coming in and and mikemichael, you know, when he's
trying to take over and lead thething, he goes.
Why don't we start by everybodygoing around the room and
saying the the races weresexually attracted to?
Oh my god and of course they gostraight to dwight, who's
(09:45):
sitting right beside mindy kelly.
What's her?
Name kelly kelly sitting rightbeside kelly.
It says I'm attracted to whitesand indians, and she like side
eyes.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Him like this is uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It's creepy on so many different levels.
It's creepy and it's a and it'sa Dwight, it's a complete
Dwight Schrute type of thing tosay, and oh.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
But the funny thing is I've been in situations where
I'm doing a training andsomeone says something so off
the wall, and you're like inyour mind that made sense, but
you didn't really consider theaudience you're sitting in front
of, and then you have to kindof pivot.
And he did such a good jobpivoting so I was like, oh, like
again, great, great trainer.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
But yeah, the training and it comes out.
You know, everybody has to signa form.
They participated in thetraining.
And Michael says, oh, I'm notgoing to sign this.
This says I actually learnedsomething.
I didn't learn anything.
You can put that taughtsomething.
Michael's trying to wrangleattention and make this about
him as per usual.
The kids would say and onceagain, mr Brown, michael, can we
(10:58):
talk about this?
And he'd go into Michael'soffice behind closed doors and
the whole reason I'm here isjust for you.
Yeah, and I didn't want tosingle you out or anything, I
tried to do this, but I needyour signature.
And of course, what?
After reading it, michael signsit as Daffy duck, so many
terminal offenses.
I mean, do your investigationand say, okay, michael, you, you
(11:21):
did this Chris Rock routine.
Okay, yeah, it's time for youto oh, oh, even going back even
further, when it first started,the episode started yeah, I've
been wanting to have a diversitytraining in our office.
For some I've been leading incharge.
Well, I haven't actually spokento anybody.
And yeah, he's trying to takecredit for something he
(11:42):
absolutely had nothing to dowith, so you know, it's trying
to take credit for something heabsolutely had nothing to do
with.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So you know his ego won't let him learn anything.
His ego won't let him listen,and that's the that's the issue
with Michael Scott.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, so now I can say that the first round of
diversity training is over andnow we go into.
Michael isn't satisfied,satisfied, so he's got to create
his own diversity day part two,and he created a little video
which I think.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
there's a couple other episodes where michael
scott creates some videos andit's like 30 seconds long and I
will say there was a point wherehe, after the after mr brown
leaves, then he signed the paper, daffy Duck, he walks out of
his office and he's being verycheeky about I vow to be honest
and empathetic and then he ripsit up, yeah, and he's like, oh
(12:36):
wait, no, I actually do want tobe those things, but.
But I have been in situations,especially in training
situations, where the leaderdoes not believe in what we're
doing, believes what we're doingis a waste of time and then
will undermine everything youjust did.
When you leave the room andthat was the one thing when
Michael was doing that it gotunder my skin so bad.
(12:59):
I was like just move on, man,let people work.
Just move on, man, let peoplework.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Just move on.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh, if you haven't watched the episode, that's the
whole gist of the show.
Michael, doesn't let anybodywork.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
He doesn't.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
How the heck.
And they're apparently one ofthe best offices in all.
Dunder Mifflin througheverything.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
So anyways, but Michael does his own and you
covered the video last time youI'll let you take the video what
michael says oh yeah, he saiddiversity today or no, we are
diversity tomorrow because todayis almost over, which I love,
(13:43):
like actually that's pretty goodmarketing he quotes abraham
that's right.
I forget what he said.
Oh my gosh, Like if you're aracist.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I'll send the army, the Northern Army, to attack and
kill you, or something likethat.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
That's right.
Yes, according to AbrahamLincoln, if you're a racist.
And okay, going back to thelast episode and the the
conferences and things.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
I I hate interactivity in conference
things because in my opinion, itmeans you didn't have enough
content to fill, so you weretrying to waste time and have
people do the stupid littlethings together and waste time,
etc.
So, anyways, oh, lauren, you'retrying to waste time and have
people do stupid little thingstogether and waste time, etc.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
So, anyways, oh Warren, you're so jaded.
That's what experientiallearning is.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
There's a difference between experiential learning
and doing teamwork and groupexercise.
I don't think I've ever doneone that I thought, oh, this was
useful for something.
No, it wasn't, but anywaysthought, oh, this was useful for
something.
Now, it wasn't, but it was Iwill.
I'll go back to the episode andtalk about.
So michael is talking about hisheritage and the first thing he
goes to is straight to oscarand asks you know, he wants him
(15:08):
to tell us about your, you know,michael's, I'm.
I'm english, scottish, german,whatever he is, and all.
And so he goes straight toOscar and says tell us about
yourself.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And Oscar clocks it.
He's like, okay, like he's sosmart, he knows what Michael's
doing.
He's like okay, well, myparents are from Mexico and they
moved here before I was born,so I was raised here.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And I loved it because, well, what do you want
to?
To be called, or I forget howhe gets on the topic what do you
want mexican?
And he goes.
Well, isn't that an offensiveterm?
Speaker 3 (15:46):
no, yes, doesn't it?
Doesn't that have connotations?
And he's like what connotationsare you talking?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
and yeah, so I think the going around the room sort
of stopped abruptly there.
So good job, and then and thenreally quick.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Kelly had to leave because she had a client meeting
and then as she was leaving andkelly's indian.
And as she was leaving, michaelwas like oh, and he goes, but
if you leave, they'll only betwo left, and he's obviously
referring to Oscar, who'sMexican, and Stanley, who's
black.
So that was a really funnymoment and she was like what?
And he's like nevermind.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah and yeah, but those are the things I don't
think you could say and do onnetwork TV today.
I think that they would havesome sort of conniption on
redoing the office like that andhaving those today.
With all the crap going on inoffices today and romances and
(16:53):
all this other stuff, you know,wow, Not that romances didn't
happen before, but with thedigital world of everything, I
think an HR office would be anexcellent TV show idea where you
get the HR team and their talk.
You don't even have to see theperpetrators of all these
offenses that we have to, youjust have to.
Oh my God, I got to deal withTommy again.
(17:13):
You know what is he.
You know it was another.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
I would love a workplace comedy that was just
the HR team and the differentfunctions of HR and outside of
that little ecosystem of all thestuff they have to deal with
regularly and all of theirregular offenders and all that
kind of stuff.
I think there's something there.
I don't have time to write it,but if someone wants to write it
, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Give us credit and some money, yeah just give me my
royalty.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
We'll timestamp this.
This is how it went out, so youknow it's fine, Sign contracts
later.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I started going down this part of the episode earlier
, but we do finally getintroduced to Toby, the office
HR person, and you know you talkabout your ratios, depending on
your industry.
I think they say it's supposedto be between one and 100, one
hr person every 100 to 200people, depending on the
industry and what they got yeahinclude, you add the warehouse
(18:12):
people, you've got 20 peoplethere, dunder, miffin and he's
got.
hopefully he handles more thanthat, but he's walking in for
Michael's diversity day and getout.
Well, first Toby tries to makea snide comment Are you going to
have a sit Indian style on thefloor, michael?
And you know trying to try to.
Michael just says get out, getout.
(18:33):
And you instantly get therelationship between Michael and
Toby, who represents HR in theshow.
So that was really telling.
So you only see Toby for what?
30 seconds or so before he justturns on 30 seconds.
I'm out.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
And, by the way, surprise that Toby, the HR
person, is the one that used theterm Indian style, isn't it
crisscross applesauce yeah,isn't that what we're doing now?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
that's what it is now , and I tell you what I did.
My daughter comes home fromkindergarten or something like
that, and talking aboutcrisscross applesauce, I'm like
what?
And I was like, oh, okay, I getit.
We can't say it's Indian styleany longer, or what have you.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Crisscross applesauce which to me sounds cuter.
For kids it is cuter.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, it's a cuter thing.
It's marketed better.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Yeah, it is marketed better.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
So the exercise the group exercise Michael comes up
with is he has all these cardson a tray and he probably played
a party game or something wherethere's something on it.
You put something in your headand you're trying to get someone
to say whatever word is on yourhead, or something like that.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
I've done a couple of things like that yeah, you got
to get the person with the cardon their head to guess what's on
their card?
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, michael has all these quote unquote races of
people, oh my gosh.
And so everybody's walkingaround with these things on
their head and most of themaren't races.
There's one of them, jewish,one is Italian.
Michael's wearing Martin LutherKing.
That's not a race.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I know, because he's my hero.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
He's my hero and anyway.
So that's the thing.
And, of course, stanley.
What did Stanley get?
Stanley got black and hisexercise is go, just walk around
the room and talk to peoplelike you would, according to
whatever race is on theirforehead, and Stanley and pam
are saying hi, how are you doing?
(20:39):
Oh, I'm doing good, how are you?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
they're having a typical conversation and michael
hates that and yeah, he wantspeople to dig into the horrible
stereotypes.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, he's come on, we have the holocaust here
versus slavery here and he'sgetting all into it.
And that's when mike or, excuseme, staley discovers that he's
got black boys and he's not toohappy about it.
And then pam and dwight gettalking and I dwight is wearing,
I think it says, chinese on hishead asian, asian, it just says
(21:14):
asian, okay, which is probablypretty advanced for that time 20
years ago.
But and Pam starts off like Ireally like your food and things
like that and Michael's onceagain prompted no, you've really
got to.
And she's like okay if I haveto give a completely untrue
stereotypical because you can'tdrive and he goes, I'm a woman.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
I'm a woman, 'm a woman, and it was just.
I do love, though, in the sameinteraction he walks up to pam
and he's just like shalom.
I would like to apply for aloan and I was like, oh my gosh,
like dwight, it's such a badexercise on so many levels, but
dwight is in it to win it whenyou have a dwight you.
You have to know your audience,like whoa he got frustrated
because someone, I guess, hintedabout rice and he's like a lot
(22:05):
of cultures eat rice and he leftthat conversation and he just
like wants to win.
So bad, and it's just so funnyoh.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
And then eric baumgartner's, kevin.
Then you have Kevin talking toAngela Kinsley I can't remember
her name.
Angela, oh, angela, yeah.
So Kevin is talking to Angelaand he goes.
You want to go to the beach,and she's like no.
You want to get high man, andshe's like no.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
I think you do man, I think you do Mon, I think you
do man, it was just, it was theyou know.
Just watching it made meviscerally uncomfortable.
I'm like there's so much inthis room that's happening that
is so wrong, and why is Michaelstill employed?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So many terminable offenses.
And then you mentioned Kellyhad to leave for an important
call.
She comes back in the room andthis is probably coming very
close to equaling the Chris Rockincident.
Yes, maybe she comes back tothe room and he does if you
watch Old Simpsons, as they tookhim off Abu character.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Oh, Abu yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It does like the Abu character.
You want some cookie and ahorrible Indian accent like
welcome to my convenience store.
Whatever he's saying, and itwas so bad.
And Kelly's just like what,what?
And she ends up hauling off andslapping him and she gets it
Kelly Well them.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
and she gets it kelly well, kelly doesn't know what's
going on.
She just walks into the roomshe's not there, privy to the
cards, she's not privy toanything and he just starts
being insulting andstereotypical at her and she
just slaps him across the face,which?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
rightfully so.
Oh, absolutely.
And like I said then he, yougot to give credit to Michael.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
He thought quickly she gets it and he's she gets it
, and then he says you now knowwhat it is to feel racism or
something.
And it's, it was just.
Oh, it was so cringy.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It was like I said, it's a really good episode.
I really enjoyed watching thatone again.
What a you know other sidestories that aren't directly as
HR cringeworthy that we see.
Well, ryan the Temp.
He was apparently sitting onthe couch the whole episode.
He wasn't invited to eithermeeting, so you just see him
(24:37):
chilling on the couch back thereand I like to think that ryan
was invited to both meetings,but he just declined slacked out
of it, doing the bare minimum,which is brian ryan's key.
You know he's ahead of his time.
Doing the the bare minimum,bare sort of like jim, I guess
you could say.
But you know, dwight stealsjim's biggest commission of the
(24:59):
year and just kills him.
And then we see the buddingromance, office romance between
pam and jim.
We see that.
So yeah, it's, like I said,good episode.
If you haven't watched it, goback and watch it.
And you we've talked aboutbefore some of these episodes
you can't even find onlineanymore or they're edited, like
(25:21):
when you watch it on ComedyCentral or what have you.
They've edited entire lines andscenes out.
Which sort of leaves when youknow it's supposed to be there.
It sort of leaves the.
You know it's one of those.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Han shot first things If you're a certain age, you
know who shot first.
Han shot first.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Han shot first.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I will say I was watching Comedy Central and they
were doing a replay of theOffice and they went.
They jumped from the pilotstraight to episode three.
They didn't even do DiversityDay when they were broadcasting
the marathon.
I was like that was aninteresting move.
So, yeah, because I mean Iwatch it and I watch it from and
they were broadcasting themarathon.
I was like that was aninteresting move.
So, yeah, because I mean Iwatch it and I watch it from the
perspective of like Michael isacting inappropriately.
(26:05):
Everything he is doing isinappropriate and that is the
joke.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Like.
The joke is that he is beinginappropriate.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
But he doesn't get that.
He is, by any stretch of theimagination, he's oblivious.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Correct, and that's why I'm always like huh, like I
always just kind of cock my heada little and be like, well,
that's weird that they like justskipped that episode completely
.
But I also, I get it, I guess.
Well, it's also.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Comedy Central who puts out South Park and some
other.
A lot more challenging things,I guess I don't know what the
right word would be.
A lot more racy things thaneven this.
But yeah, to see this episodenot in that list.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I did want to say really quick.
All the points in this episodewere Michael, I love Michael, I
do.
I think we always talk aboutMichael being the epitome of a
really great individualcontributor who just is promoted
into a management positionbecause of their performance and
not because of their leadershipabilities.
And there are so many points inthis episode where he should
(27:11):
have been termed at the firstiteration of his rendition of
the Chris Rock joke.
He should have been then termedwhen he signed the form.
He didn't take it seriously andhe signed the form Daffy Duck.
He should have been termed whenhe threw this atrociously
abhorrent training that hedecided to do on his own.
(27:34):
There are so many steps in thisepisode where I was like what
are you doing, toby?
Like what are you doing backthere?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
He's thinking about Kelly and Pam a little too much
back there.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Oh, that's right, he does have the hots for Pam.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah.
So yeah, I don't think we findthat out for like years to come,
though yeah, he's kind of acreeper about it for like years
to come, though.
Yeah, he's kind of a creeperabout it.
Yeah, those will be some goodepisodes too that we do to cover
some of those things.
Yeah, so what's on the agendanext for?
Do you have any episodes online?
(28:11):
Oh, really quick.
One more thing.
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
One more thing I wanted to add before we moved on
.
One of the things I wanted tosay was, when we're talking
about training and development,when you're talking about these
kinds of situations like race,like diversity and inclusion,
and there are certain thingsthat, unless you have a
dedicated learning professionalin-house, there are certain
things that you should not touchwith a 10-foot pole and you
(28:36):
should probably outsource to anexpert and I think about that
when I watch this episode thatthe company did the right thing
by outsourcing this to diversitytoday.
But again, michael, thinking heknows better, just railroads
the situation and makes itreally inappropriate and, in my
(28:58):
opinion, kind of fireable.
So, oh yeah, lesson to belearned.
There are certain things thatyou probably should get an
external person involved if yourcompany is not equipped with an
lnd team and I don't thinkdunder mifflin is.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I really don't think they are either.
And another thing thing whereyou can take managers they're
doing their own wild wild westof training and development that
you don't.
You know, maybe they're doingsomething very functional for
their team.
Bring HR in the loop.
Just, you know, I wasexplaining to somebody the other
(29:34):
day.
My job is not to get in the way.
I want to support what you'redoing, but give me all the info
I need so I can support it.
If you want to make a personnelmove, you want to let someone
go my goal, I want to supportyou, but you have to give me
what I need to support you,because this person thought that
(29:55):
I was going to be a roadblockfor them removing somebody who
needed to be removed, and I'mlike no, no, just I want to
support you, I want to supportthe company, but you have to
give me what I want first.
And it scares me to death tothink that there are line
managers out there doing theirown training, even if it's
(30:16):
functional training, linemanagers out there doing their
own training, even if it'sfunctional training.
Hey, you're a machine operator,you do?
You know to do this?
A, b, c, d, e, f, g.
Let us know, give us a heads up, you know, just so we know.
And if we have more questions,or maybe there's something they
didn't think about, maybe, hey,osha, let's talk a little bit
about OSHA.
This might be a good time tobring something up along those
lines Get HR involved.
(30:37):
We're not the bad guy.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
It's funny that you mentioned that, because a friend
of mine who is a she's a DE&Iprofessional with a company.
I guess her company's benefitdepartment sent out this thing
for autism awareness.
Because we're in autismawareness and I guess they do a
(31:01):
monthly newsletter in thebenefits department and whoever
the benefits person was justearnestly copy and pasted
something that a benefitsprovider sent to them and one of
their vendors sent and it wentout and apparently it had a lot
of things in there that was well, people with autism they don't
(31:23):
deal well in public situationsand they don't do well counting
money and they don't like all ofthese really archaic things
that she just pulled fromanywhere without thinking about
it.
And luckily it was a livedocument, because as soon as my
friend got wind of it she calledup and she's like no, no, no,
(31:44):
no, no, no, we need to change it.
And basically had her own copyin place because like way better
, and it was all aboutneurodivergency and stuff like
that, and yeah, it was like itcould have been a really bad
situation, but they caught it.
So not a lot of people saw it,but yeah, it was like it could
have been a really bad situation, but they caught it.
So not a lot of people saw it.
But again, people in theorganization do things that are
very well intended and includingthe DEI person is not a
(32:11):
roadblock, but it's like apartnership so that you can say
things that aren't eitheroutdated or insulting or
whatever, like all this stuff.
So that's, yeah, that couldhave been a really bad situation
.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
And you know neurodiversity and autism are
some of my hot button topics.
Hot button topics and I'mparticularly because when
someone goes down that road Ihave knowledge and experience
(32:50):
with dealing with it.
And I will say originally I wasfinding so much stuff about
just autism and about it wasjust blatantly false or it was
stereotypical type stuff andit's not true.
And now I think over the yearspeople have sort of gotten in
line with it a little bit better.
But yeah, that's a hot buttontopic we can definitely cross in
(33:12):
a regular episode.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Hey, I'm on, I'm on that neurodiversity train,
choo-choo.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
So I think we should just go straight into episode
three, the healthcare episode.
Oh, the healthcare episode yeah,it's straight up HR alley.
I think there's some that won'tbe quite as HR-ish, but you can
take any episode at all andturn it into HR with this.
(33:42):
I'm looking at episode six.
Hot Girl oh, you can definitelyHot Girl, that's right.
I mean, I'm just looking Downthe list here.
There's nothing I could say, oh, we could skip this one.
The Dundee Awards oh, thatmight have to be a two-episode
special for us.
And then oh, then the dundies.
Yeah, oh, that's season two,episode one.
And then sexual harassment andI'm looking at the list, if I,
(34:07):
if I can find it, I swear,somewhere online.
Conan o'brien, in one of hispodcasts or conan o'brien needs
a friend says that they actuallyplay excerpts from the sexual
harassment all of his sexualharassment at NBC for preventing
sexual harassment.
I was like that is so, so good,whatever.
So anyways, yeah, we'lldefinitely.
(34:29):
I don't see it episode to skipin season one though, as we're
looking down at.
But healthcare shoulddefinitely be the.
We'll be doing that one in May,so stay tuned for that.
Y'all Awesome.
Well, I think these are a lot offun.
I hope we can get back to doingthem regularly, once a month,
(34:50):
and if you have any ideas forshows, and this isn't just going
to be limited to the Office.
I think Office Space has some.
We ought to do a rewatch onOffice Space.
There's so many shows that wecould bring in.
I mentioned Big Bang Theory.
They have their.
Wolowitz always seems to be inHR's office.
Regina King, who is?
(35:12):
You know, she's a great personfor the.
I don't know her name in theshow, I just know she's the HR
person.
And yeah, there's some othergreat shows that have some HR
implications with that.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
So, yeah, yeah, I'm a big fan.
I don't know if any of thelisteners heard of the show
Superstore.
I think Superstore is great,especially if you work, either
if your industry is the retailindustry, and especially if you
work on the corporate end ofretail.
That is a fantastic show towatch Because there's a lot of
them versus us as far ascorporate versus floor workers,
(35:48):
and I think there's a lot ofreally funny but good takeaways
from that.
And it's the same thing If youlike the Office and you like
Parks and Recreation, it's thesame creators.
I also think parks andrecreation like that whole
government piece of, like thegovernment working for local
government or something likethat.
They have a lot of greatepisodes too.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So I, I love me some, ron Swanson.
I feel like I'm Ron Swansonhalf the time.
Put those tears back in youreyes where they belong, and
things like that.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Put those tears back in your eyes where they belong.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
I can quote Ron Swanson as much as I can pretty
much any other shows.
But anyways, listeners, if youhave any ideas, let us know.
We want to definitely make this, you know, expand this a little
bit.
Maybe it'll be more than once amonth we do an office rewatch
or a TV show.
If it's not the office, arewatch of some sort.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
So anyways, thanks for it's pop culture through the
lens of HR.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Absolutely yeah, so thank you for listening y'all.
We'll be back in another month,with the end of May, with a
healthcare episode.
So, as always, I'm Warren.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
I'm Cece.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
And we're here helping you survive HR one.
What the fuck moment at a time.
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